Girls don't like boys, girls like jewels and…

I’m editing our episode on Crazy Rich Asians right now (out this Thursday!) and in it, there is a point where my guest Wei Ming Kam asks me who my favourite character is in the movie. Without hesitation, I answer “the Emerald.” The emerald, the emerald, the emerald!! I love and worship the emerald. I love the silence the emerald demands when Rachel compliments it during passive-aggressive dumpling school. I love when Michelle Yeoh practically stabs Rachel with it on the staircase. I love the plane scene, where Nick chases Rachel with the emerald all the way through economy. I love the sound the emerald makes when the box is opened – that unmistakable squeak of velvet and hinge, the sound we know so well from Important Jewellery in Films – the squeak that says: Rachel, you have been begrudgingly accepted into the Young family. Please pass Go, please collect the emerald of approval, please collect two hundred million dollars.